


Fast Times, Past Times

by elzed



Category: Friday Night Lights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-13
Updated: 2008-12-13
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:47:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1642325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elzed/pseuds/elzed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Characters: Tami/Eric<br/>Spoilers: to 3.05 Every Rose Has Its Thorn.<br/>Disclaimer: Much as I would love to own them, I am merely borrowing the wonderful characters of FNL.<br/>Words: 1,100 approx.<br/>Beta: The wonderful overnighter, as ever.<br/>This was the original fandom I had on offer, and the story I was going to write in the first place until another fandom ate my brain. But I felt I wanted to do the lovely Mr. and Mrs. Coach justice, so I offer this stocking filler of a story, just for a little extra fun  since I see my recipient really loves this couple, to which I am rather partial. Hope it works for you. Happy Yuletide!<br/>Written for deense</p>
    </blockquote>





	Fast Times, Past Times

**Author's Note:**

> Characters: Tami/Eric  
> Spoilers: to 3.05 Every Rose Has Its Thorn.  
> Disclaimer: Much as I would love to own them, I am merely borrowing the wonderful characters of FNL.  
> Words: 1,100 approx.  
> Beta: The wonderful overnighter, as ever.  
> This was the original fandom I had on offer, and the story I was going to write in the first place until another fandom ate my brain. But I felt I wanted to do the lovely Mr. and Mrs. Coach justice, so I offer this stocking filler of a story, just for a little extra fun  since I see my recipient really loves this couple, to which I am rather partial. Hope it works for you. Happy Yuletide!  
> Written for deense

 

 

_"Did I ever tell you that I almost dropped out of high school?"_

"You almost dropped out of high school?"

"Yeah... I know it's hard to believe huh? Your mama was a little bit of a wild child back in the day."

"So, what happened?"

"Well, what happened was your dad happened. I mean, your dad, you know... And he had struggles of his own too but you know, we were lucky we just had each other, always managed to... pull each other up by our bootstraps, but I know how easy that road is to go down..."

The streetlights filter through the blinds, throwing black and white stripes on the bedroom walls that stretch out of shape whenever a car drives by. Tami stares at them for what feels like hours - counting and recounting them in a futile attempt to send herself to sleep as her conversation with Julie replays in her head - before she gives up. 

Eric is snoring on his side of the bed, one arm flung over her possessively, but he's deep in sleep, and doesn't move when she slips out from under him and tiptoes to the door. 

A quick check on Gracie - who looks like she fell asleep while praying to Mecca, collapsed onto her face, little arms stretched ahead, knees folded - and Tami pads quietly down the hall and takes the milk out of the fridge. Her mama always said warm milk was the best drink for a good night's sleep, and while privately Tami thinks whiskey might work better, she's working tomorrow and really doesn't need a headache.

She watches the pale blue mug rotating in the microwave, lulling her with its low whirr, and presses the off switch just before the beeping starts - she swears she has the loudest microwave in the whole of Texas. 

It's only when Tami is curled up in her favorite armchair, hands wrapped around the comforting warmth of the mug, that she allows herself to think properly about what she said to Jules earlier. It's been a while since she's let herself reminisce about her teenage years, probably because it scares her how close she was to going off the rails. She worries that her daughter has inherited that wild streak she's fought so hard to overcome.

That senior year, though - oh, God, she shudders to think of all the nights she used to climb back into her bedroom hours after curfew, more often than not drunk on cheap beer and tequila, hair mussed and lips swollen from kissing boys in the back seat of their dads' station wagons, her body aroused and tingling from all the touching. She remembers the petty trading that went on, the constant battle for supremacy, hands under sweaters, into panties; the begging - for handjobs, blowjobs, any degree of nudity - the heady thrill of it all (accompanied more often than not by a dose of reality check the next day, and shame). 

There were a couple of times that stick in her mind, before Eric turned up and changed everything: the night she lost her virginity to one of the running backs on the team and spent a couple of weeks thinking it was true love and that Steve Stanley was going to be her boyfriend forever; the party, later that season, where she saw Steve making a move on her best friend Josie and realized she'd just been a small link in that chain, and that teenage girls made fickle friends; the afternoon her dad almost walked into her bedroom - she was saved by the doorbell, unbelievably - when she was supposed to be studying for the SATs with Holroyd Wilson, and instead got an introduction to oral sex as performed by clueless seventeen-year-old boys. 

It's a miracle she wasn't put off sex for life, really, with that track record, but she probably has Eric to thank for that. If there's one thing the two of them figured out early on, it was how to listen to each other when it counted, not least in bed.

Tami takes a deep breath, a long sip of her hot milk, and closes her eyes. She should stop worrying about Julie - she's much steadier than Tami was at that age, and doesn't need an Eric to save her from herself. Besides, she already has a knight in shining armor riding circles around her, waiting for her to notice him again, and Tami can't help but root for him.

The thing is, there are sides of Matt Saracen that remind Tami so much of another young quarterback twenty years ago that she wonders why Eric can't see them. Of course, Matt is shyer, quieter than Eric ever was (although he used to tremble in front of _her_ dad, too); but there is something about the boy's deeply ingrained moral sense, the way he stepped up to his responsibilities with his grandma like a man - and him barely fifteen then - not to mention his old-fashioned respect for Julie, which is powerfully reminiscent of a teenage Eric Taylor.

Except that where Matt is still gangly and insecure, Eric had - even then - a physical confidence both on and off the playing field that, well, made a difference. Funny how little he's changed, really, since he was eighteen. He's filled up some - a man rather than a boy - but he's still the same good-looking athlete who asked her out after an algebra test and wouldn't take no for an answer, even though Tami had sworn never to go for another football player after the Steve debacle. 

It took him six weeks, and a whole lot of balls to keep showing up after she refused him, but even then Eric Taylor knew what he wanted and what he was prepared to fight for. And Lord, she never regretted it for a second, not in the years where they were trying for a second child, to no avail and not a little grief; not even last year when the world went crazy with Gracie Belle and Eric's job in Austin, and her family nearly fell apart under the strain. 

The warm milk must have worked its magic because now she can't stop yawning, and the thought of her bed is becoming more appealing by the second. Pausing only to put the mug in the dishwasher, Tami walks back down the hallway and slips into their room. As her eyes get used to the darkness, she seeks out her husband's shape under the comforter, his shock of black hair on the pale blue pillow, and is overcome by a rush of tenderness that sends her straight into the bed, to snuggle against him and nuzzle gently into his neck, inhaling his scent. Eric grunts sleepily and turns over, his arm landing on her side, a little uncomfortable perhaps but oh so comforting, so exactly right that she curls up around his body and falls asleep straightaway, all her concerns forgotten. 

 


End file.
